Brownian Motion

Adapted from an article I wrote for The Tower, the PHS student newspaper.

The ocean is quite a poetic oxymoron. For hundreds of thousands of years, it has separated cultures with vast seas and treacherous storms, and yet it has also unified them in contemplating the same majestic waters. As they gazed, they thought of stories. What does the ocean hold, hidden beneath its seemingly endless waves?

One of these stories has lasted over two millenia: Atlantis, the mythical lost city. Countless civilizations have grown and fallen in the time between us and Plato's writing of the Timaeus and Critias, in which a fictional character named Solon, tells Critias a story about a land that sank beneath the waves some nine thousand years prior. According to Plato, Solon heard of Atlantis from some Egyptian priests while journeying in Africa. In reality, Plato probably made it up.

In his tale, Atlantis was at first a utopian kingdom, built on a mountainous island and filled with virtuous people. However, the inhabitants gradually grew corrupt and too proud of themselves. In blind lust for power, they tried to invade Athens, which did not exactly please the Greek gods. Divine judgment rained down from the heavens, floods and earthquakes ensued, and Atlantis fell into the murky depths of the ocean. Plato likely intended this as a cautionary tale on the dangers of excessive pride and messing with Athens, but that intention has not prevented a myriad of later scholars, writers, and conspiracy theorists from searching for this “lost land.”

Many have tried their hand at finding where Atlantis once stood. Plato stated that Atlantis lay in the Atlantic Ocean, near the mountains flanking the Strait of Gibraltar. And while the numerous claims of finding the actual submerged island are generally considered pseudoscience, the story of Atlantis might not be entirely fictional. Some have speculated that Plato drew inspiration for the destruction of Atlantis from a real-world event, such as the Minoan eruption that devastated the island of Thera (modern Santorini), or the tsunami that destroyed the city-state Helike.

Our fascination with Atlantis has even spilled over into our literature and media. After Plato, the first source referring to Atlantis is from the Roman historian Plutarch. In the second century, he wrote a biography of Solon (the actual Athenian statesman), in which Plutarch described Solon’s supposed travels and recounted the Atlantis tale as if it were fact. From there, Atlantis made its way into science fiction with “20,000 Leagues Under The Sea”, where author Jules Verne wrote about voyagers walking around the underwater ruins of the city. Atlantis has been referenced in television shows like “Futurama” and “Phineas and Ferb;” it has served as a motif in countless movies, in animes, in operas. There are far more examples than I could name in this short article; the Wikipedia page for “Atlantis in popular culture” has over two hundred items (yes I counted).

As we gaze upon the ocean, we think of stories. Stories that grow and change like the crawling roots of a mangrove tree, that entrench themselves deep in the shifting waters of society, that weather the ebb and flow of time. Perhaps the true legacies of these myths lie not beneath the waves, but in the influence they have had on humanity.